Collaboration Provides New Tools for Liver Cancer Treatment

Interventional radiologists and oncologists have for the first time treated a liver cancer patient using a new procedure that aims to block blood flow and achieve tumor necrosis.

The procedure is the result of collaboration between two specialist healthcare manufacturers, and uses live image-guidance to visualize embolic beads during treatment of liver cancer. Liver cancer is difficult to treat, and is a leading cause of death from cancer worldwide. The procedure can help those patients with liver cancer tumors that cannot be removed using surgery.

BTG (London, UK) and Royal Philips (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) developed the intervention which used BTG's LC Bead LUMI radiopaque embolic bead, and Philips' 2-D X-Ray and 3-D Cone-Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) image guidance. The procedure enables interventional radiologists and oncologists to see whether tumor treatment is complete, by providing live enhanced visualization.

Ronald Tabaksblat, business leader of Philips' Image Guided Therapy Systems, said, "Minimally-invasive therapy procedures provide key benefits for healthcare systems and patients, and intelligent image guidance is an essential part of these procedures. We aim to continuously improve Image Guided Therapy and our collaboration with BTG to provide enhanced visibility and guidance during interventional embolization procedures is another important milestone in this exciting journey to help deliver excellent treatment and enhanced patient care."

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